wyoming

Things you wanted to know about Wyoming, but were afraid to ask:

1. The wind is INSANE. Businesses keep the left door on their double doors locked at pretty much all times, due to wind. I have lost control of shopping carts. With 2 children in them at the time. I have not been able to open the van door carefully at times, and I am using all my strength, and when it blows open it hits the car next to me. Which is usually ok because Wyoming drivers have those nice padded wrap-around thingys on the front of their cars. The ones that don't have lots and lots and lots and lots of dings. Signs routinely say "caution: winds at 50+ miles per hour" on the highway, yet you really only need to worry when it gets higher than that and you start passing overturned semis. There is a garbage cyclone in front of the bookstore near my house...sounds kinda gross, but it's neat to watch and it pretty much never stops. When it's really cold and you walk outside, the wind whips right into your lungs and you can't speak. In other words: it's a bad hair year.

2. You can't buy liquor in the grocery stores, you have to go to a liquor store. This is not difficult as there is one on every corner. Kind of like Starbucks in Seattle. And they have drive-thrus (not kidding). And also margherita slushy machines. And they're open like, constantly, round the clock, even on Sundays. And even though you're supposed to be 21 or older, people bring in all their kids. Which begs the question, why exactly don't they just sell it in the grocery stores?

3. In spite of the foreward march of progress in the drive-thru alcohol consumption, you can't find a single coffee drive-thru. Cowboys like their coffee non-frou-frou, and I guess they prefer to get out of their trucks to purchase it.

4. It's the least populated state in America. So if you want to come visit me, I'm super easy to find.

5. Our airport is so small you can park right in front, literally. There are a few old chairs in the lobby you can sit in while you wait for your loved one to get off the puddle jumper he was just on, clinging to the edge of his seat in fear, while the "plane" puts-puts to safety. If you're going against the wind the ride from Denver is short, if you're with the wind, well, you barely have time to get yourself a ginger ale and you've landed. It's the general concensus that it's better to just drive yourself from Denver.

6. Jimmy Stewart made a movie called The Cheyenne Social Club about him buying a brothel. Good stuff. But I don't think we have brothels here anymore. Coicidently, (or maybe not) Jimmy Stewart was also in North By Northwest which takes place at Mt Rushmore, just one state and an afternoon's drive away. So if you like Jimmy Stewart (and if you don't you're no longer my friend) you should come see the places he liked to make movies at.

7. Antelope are frequent. I went garage saleing last summer and so did the antelope. I got better deals however because I can haggle and they can't, not really. They can stand there and look pretty, but most dealers aren't as impressed by that as they are by humans crossing their palms with some silver.

8. When I told anyone I was moving to Wyoming I was met with blank stares. Then they usually say, 'I broke down in Wyoming once. But I didn't know anyone actually lived there...' Then I would say, 'We're moving for my husband's job.' Then they look less baffled and say, 'Oooooh! You're military!' because that's the only reason they can think of that would explain things. Sometimes I just look agreeable at that assumption because I'm ready for the conversation to end. Similar to when the girls were tiny babies and people assumed they were boys, and they'd coo, 'Oh what a cute little man!' At first I'd correct them, but then I got to thinking, hey I'm never going to see these people again so what's the point in making them feel bad about themselves? So then I just started saying, 'Isn't he though?' And on we'd go on our separate ways. But I always kind of worried just a little that I would see those people again, and then I'd have to explain myself at some point and they'd think I was a nut and wouldn't understand at all.

9. The elevation here is around 9000 feet high. I don't have anything else to say about that; it's just a fact.

10. Last year we had a snowball fight in August.